This Heart of Mine
by fairytale ideals
Summary: It seemed to Nick that everything in their lives was lining up for them to spend eternity together. They'd gone through all the steps to move forward up to now, and he knew that he was absolutely ready to take the plunge. He just had a good feeling about it.


_Fair warning, this probably isn't going to end the way you want it to._

* * *

Nick was the sort of person who trusted his gut instinct. If something felt right, well, then he would feel fairly certain that it _was_ right.

This was especially true when it came to the one and only Jeffrey Sterling. When he'd first seen Jeff, his gut had told him to walk up to him. That was the beginning of the greatest friendship he'd ever have. The first time he'd seen him cry, his gut had told him to wrap his arms around him and dry his tears. Two days after that one, Jeff walked up to him and, well… Nick assumed that he was also following his gut feeling, because one second Nick was smiling at him and saying hello, and the next they were kissing and Jeff was holding him tightly like he was afraid to let go.

Ever since then, Nick had been all but attached to Jeff at the hip, and very rarely did his gut instinct lead him astray. On more than one occasion, he'd had a bad feeling and went to Jeff, finding him in desperate need of a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on. Whenever he felt like anything was off with Jeff, he would start a conversation that would prevent a later fight. It worked out perfectly.

That wasn't to say, of course, that he _always_ listened to his gut instinct. Naturally, when they realized that they had a window in their apartment that opened out onto a roof, his gut told him that following Jeff out would be a horrible idea; they had been doing _shots_ that night, for god's sake. But he ignored it, and went out to stand on the roof with a stumbling Jeff.

That night, they toasted the city of Chicago and Jeff, clinging to Nick to stop himself from swaying too much, slurred in his ear that he wanted to marry him.

Which was where Nick was at now.

It had been a few years since that night on the roof, and they'd long since left that apartment for one that was much nicer and, when they'd first moved in, they could hardly afford. Their life together was always getting better and better and on the quiet mornings when Nick sat on the counter while Jeff made pancakes for them both, he couldn't help but replay Jeff's drunken ramblings about forever and _Duval-Sterling just sounds better than Sterling-Duval_ (even though it totally didn't).

He couldn't help but think about their cat, who Jeff insisted he was the Daddy of and Nick was the Papa. About how throughout college everyone kept telling him that they were expecting one of them to pop the question. About how they had a restaurant where they were regulars and the owner always stopped by their table and called them 'the lovebirds'. About how they washed the dishes together and they shared a toothbrush and were, according to one of their friends, 'almost disgustingly domestic'. About how some of their friends were already married and were having _kids_.

It seemed to Nick that everything in their lives was lining up for them to spend eternity together. They'd gone through all the steps to move forward up to now, and he knew that he was absolutely ready to take the plunge. He just had a good feeling about it.

He did everything he could to make sure that it would be perfect when he asked Jeff to marry him, because he knew that he deserved nothing less than that.

Nick wasn't usually much of a perfectionist. He used to be, would spend hours upon hours working on school projects to make sure that they were perfect, but then Jeff happened and he suddenly had much better things to do with his time than rereading take-home essays five times.

And yet, even though it was Jeff that ended his 'measure probably a million times, cut once' tendencies, it was still him that brought them back.

The problem was, of course, that nothing felt right to him. Any idea that seemed to him like it would be perfect for Jeff also seemed to be logistically impossible.

Part of him wanted to do something that was, alright, a bit cliché, but still something that Jeff would appreciate. Maybe he'd hire a band or set up a light show or take him on a hot air balloon.

The problem was, of course, that Nick spent probably more than he should have on the ring, and as a result couldn't really afford to do any sort of extravagant proposal. Which he supposed was probably for the best, considering the fact that Jeff probably wouldn't care too much for Nick making a show out of their engagement.

He asked around to all their friends, and got slightly varying answers that all came back to about the same point: Nick was the only person who would know exactly what Jeff would want, but in the end it wouldn't really matter because there was no way Jeff was going to say no. As their roommate from college put it, "he'd probably say yes even if you asked him in the middle of sex or something."

Which, to be fair, was probably true. But not terribly romantic.

In hindsight, he'd probably mark the beginning of the fiasco that was proposing to Jeff not when he first got the idea, and not even when he bought the ring. No, it started when he was sitting on the couch on his laptop reading proposal stories online in hopes of getting inspired and Jeff walked in, leading him to slam his laptop shut and throw it across the couch.

Jeff hadn't asked, just shrugged and said, "Well, I've never been too big on subtlety, and I've heard that if you live with someone for long enough, they rub off on you." Nick sort of wanted to ask what he thought he had been doing, but didn't for fear that 1) Jeff had assumed he was watching porn, or 2) Jeff might expect him to tell him what he had _really_ been doing.

In the end, Nick ended up choosing what was probably the most cliché proposal in the book: he was going to take him to a fancy restaurant and as him to marry him at the end of the meal.

(He considered doing something like having the kitchen cook the ring into their dessert or put the ring in Jeff's wine glass or something, but he'd always found that not only risky but also just a bit gross.)

It wasn't like it wasn't something that they wanted to do, either. Whenever Jeff saw on Facebook or Instagram that their friends had gone out to eat at some restaurant where you paid a hundred dollars for a tiny plate, he'd turn to Nick and say, "Once, Nick, just once, we should be assholes and do this."

And, really, the only thing that was more asshole-y than going out to a restaurant like that was to get engaged at a restaurant like that.

So, after a quick Google search of the most expensive restaurants in Chicago (during which he found out that, at least in January of 2012, Chicago had half of the top ten most expensive restaurants in America), he made a call to one with a French-sounding name that he wasn't entirely sure how to pronounce, and made a reservation.

It was after that that he started to get jumpy. He figured that it was probably because he now had a set date for it. Before, proposing to Jeff was more of just an abstract thought, something that he knew he would do but wasn't sure exactly how.

There were a number of situations like the one with his laptop between when he made the reservation and the night of.

Nick didn't really care to count or wonder about the number of times he had been talking to himself in the mirror, practicing ideas for what he might say to Jeff when he finally got down on one knee, only to have to stop mid-sentence because he heard him coming into their apartment.

"Ducky? Did I hear you talking?" Jeff asked the first time it happened, and Nick tried to just shrug it off.

"Oh, ah, I was just on the phone," he replied with a somewhat nervous laugh, pulling his phone from his pocket and showing it to Jeff as if he needed a demonstration as to what a phone was.

"With who?" Jeff asked, with that casualness that only came from someone who genuinely didn't think that anything suspicious was happening. (By the time that Nick finally took him out to dinner, there was a fair amount of suspicion in his voice that he, mercifully, left unvoiced.)

Nick made up an excuse, like calling one of their friends, since Jeff would never think much of that.

And then there were the times that Nick would be sitting there, just staring down at the ring with a small smile on his lips, picturing the look on Jeff's face when he saw it. Of course, Jeff would pop up out of nowhere, and Nick would sit up quickly and shove the ring back into his pocket.

And perhaps the worst was how sometimes Nick wouldn't completely trust himself to talk to Jeff. It wasn't that he didn't want to, of course, he would always want to talk to Jeff. But part of him was worried that he might let something slip, say something about the reservation or his plans or something else that would make it clear that he was about to pop the question.

So instead of saying anything, some nights he'd let Jeff carry the conversation, since he was good at it. It worked out decently well, usually; Jeff was the sort of person who could make a simple story an hour long yet still entertaining, and Nick loved the sound of his voice and some days he'd be so tired that all he wanted to do was to just listen to that voice.

It was little things like that, he guessed, that would make Jeff wonder about what was going on. And he knew that Jeff was wondering, because sometimes in quiet moments during dinner or in bed or when they were curled up on the couch watching television, Nick would feel eyes on him and he'd know that Jeff was looking at him. But when he looked, Jeff would just smile at him, lean in to kiss him, and say, "I love you" and sometimes, "I love you so much, you know that?"

There was one night, though, when Nick had come home a bit late because he'd stopped after work to stop and pick up a couple of rented tuxedos for him and Jeff, where things were a bit more unusual.

When he got home, Jeff was in the kitchen, humming to himself as he chopped vegetables. Nick ducked into the bedroom and tucked away the tuxedo bags before coming back out and standing in the kitchen doorway to watch him.

The thing about Jeff was that he probably could have made a career out of dancing, if he'd wanted to. So watching him making dinner and dancing around the kitchen was really something to behold.

"Oh!" Jeff said, a smile spreading across his face as he was caught by surprise seeing Nick standing there. "There you are! I was about to call you and see where you were. Or call the cops if you didn't pick up." He chuckled softly, winking at him.

"I was over at Bennett's," he replied with a small shrug, knowing that their friend would cover for him if asked. "I was going to call you, but I didn't know how long it would take. He was having a scarf emergency, and you know how he gets."

Jeff laughed at that, rolling his eyes fondly. "Oh, Bennett," he said, rolling his eyes fondly.

It wasn't until later that evening that he realized that Jeff hadn't kissed him to welcome him home like he usually did. When he realized this as they were getting ready for bed, he immediately leaned over and kissed him. Jeff lit up, smiling at him for a moment before turning away to go to bed.

When Nick went back into the bedroom, Jeff was already curled up in bed, watching him. As he moved around the room, he heard a mumbled, "Just get in bed already."

Nick chuckled softly, turning around to face Jeff with a raised eyebrow.

"I feel like you're a million miles away," he said, patting the spot on the bed next to him. Nick tried to tell himself that Jeff wasn't saying anything deeper than that with those words.

He just climbed into bed and wrapped his arms around Jeff's waist, pulling him in close and kissing behind his right ear. "Goodnight, Jeffster, I love you," he murmured, though he was fairly certain that the blond was asleep as soon as Nick hit the mattress.

* * *

Nick was fairly certain he had never been more simultaneously relieved and anxious for a day to arrive than he was when the day of his reservation arrived.

He swung by Jeff's work early, made small talk with the elderly owner of the flower shop before requesting that she let his boyfriend go early for the day. She was a bit hesitant (and Nick was fairly certain that this was because she was lonely and found something of a son in Jeff, because Jeff was just the sort of guy that everyone grew deeply fond of very easily) until he whispered in her ear why exactly he needed him.

"Where are we going?" Jeff asked with a laugh as he followed Nick out to his car.

"We're going to be assholes," he replied with a grin.

For a moment, he paused, furrowing his brow. "That doesn't even slightly answer my question."

"We're going out to a five star restaurant," he answered with a grin.

Jeff's face lit up, clapping his hands a couple of times. "Yes, finally! I will go somewhere where I truly belong!"

Nick just laughed as they got into the car. "I got us some suits, by the way. I figured we wouldn't have anything in the closet that was suitable."

"Nice pun," Jeff replied with a grin, laughing. "But seriously, you're great. You think of everything."

They spent the next couple of hours excitedly chattering about their dinner plans and how they probably wouldn't find anything on the menu so they'd end up having to stop at the McDonald's on their way home.

When they were finally standing in the restaurant, Jeff leaned into Nick and murmured into his ear, "It's so dark in here. So romantic. Like they want us to fall asleep on our dates."

Over the course of the meal, Nick was fairly certain that he was falling in love with Jeff all over again.

Despite the mood lighting making Jeff tired, it had the desired effect on Nick: make him all the more attracted to his date. Even though, after years of admiring and touching, he knew every inch of Jeff down to the last freckle, he still felt like the low light was hiding something new, unseen, and no doubt beautiful about him.

And, like usual, he was the funniest person that Nick had ever met. It wasn't like it was just him being funny, either, he knew. It was his laugh, too. There was something about it that just made you want to laugh more with him. It was a vicious cycle: you'd both start laughing, then he'd laugh more and you'd laugh more and then he'd laugh even more.

Jeff frequently reached across the table to hold Nick's hand. The little touch made Nick wish that they went out on real dates more often; it was so perfect, just a little contact that neither of them mentioned or made a big deal out of.

Nick almost felt like this was his first date and it was all fresh and new and he had to impress Jeff, even though he knew the other man like the back of his hand.

In the end, though, it was surprisingly easy to slide out of his chair to get down on one knee. Granted, of course, that his heart started to pound and he could feel himself shaking like a fawn just learning to walk.

"Jeff," he said softly, a small smile on his lips as he took his hand. He was sure that he was turning a lot of heads now, knew people loved to watch proposals happen, but he didn't even care at that moment. He vaguely wondered if this was what Jeff felt like all the time, completely un-self-conscious.

Jeff nodded slightly, and Nick took that as a cue to go on.

"You are, without a doubt, the greatest thing to ever happen to me," he said, giving Jeff's hand a small squeeze. "You were my best friend for years before we got together, and lucky for me, you never stopped being my best friend... just became so much more.

"I don't know what I would do without you, you make my life so much better. I don't know when it happened, exactly, but at some point my vision of the future reached a point where I literally cannot picture it without you," he said. Taking his hand back from him, he pulled the ring in its little box out of his pocket, opening it up to show Jeff.

As he'd always imagined, Jeff's eyes went wide and a little bit watery at the sight of the ring.

"So, Jeff Sterling... Will you marry me?"

Everything seemed to slow down then. Nick had always figured time would stop when he proposed, that maybe he would panic and try to backtrack or something, but he always figured that it would go _well_. Instead, Jeff reached his hand out and for a second Nick thought that he was reaching for the ring, until he realized that his hand was poised to grab his water glass.

The problem was that Nick knew everything about Jeff, knew each and every one of his idiosyncrasies. When he was seventeen, Nick realized that Jeff liked to just bide his time in awkward moments: whenever his family members asked him about having a girlfriend at holiday get-togethers, he'd always take a drink before answering. Jeff had always glanced at Nick when that happened, gave him a little apologetic look and swallowed before saying something about not finding the right girl.

Except now the apology in Jeff's eyes did nothing to help him, just stopped his pounding heart for a second and made him want to take back the entire past several years so that he wouldn't have to find out what it was like to fall in love with and subsequently have his heart broken by Jeff Sterling.

But he had no DeLorean, and even if he did, he knew that he wouldn't give up his life with Jeff for anything, even with the ending that he knew Jeff was about to bring. He was that ridiculously in love with him. _Stupidly_ in love, apparently, and not in cute the way that everyone always called him and Jeff.

Jeff sat forward slightly, glancing around him and biting his lip. Nick really wished he hadn't done that, hadn't reminded him that he was about to be rejected and he had an _audience_.

"Nick," he said quietly, his voice just a whisper as he reached out to take Nick's hand in his. Jeff's hand was the same as it always was, warm and the perfect fit for his.

"I'm sorry."

But it wasn't the same as it always was, not really, because Jeff had always said kind, perfect words that made Nick feel better when he held his hand.

"I can't marry you," Jeff said quietly, his words just barely audible past the pounding of Nick's heart.

"Why not?" Nick asked, and he knew he'd later be ashamed of how much he sounded like a scared, upset child.

"This past week or so... You were so distant," he answered with a small frown, his voice still so soft it felt like it belonged pillowed in their bed on Sunday morning. Nick opened his mouth to protest, but Jeff cut him off. "And, yeah, now I realize that it was because you were going to going to propose and you were nervous or something..." He let out a long breath, running his fingers though his hair. "But I thought you were cheating on me, or you were going to break up with me."

Nick just shook his head weakly. "But... I'm not." He left the _so why are you doing this?_ he wanted to scream unsaid.

"So... I was bracing myself for it," Jeff said with a sad smile. "That sounds awful, now that I know, but... I was. I was throwing up my walls because you were and I was preparing myself to try to remember what life without you is like."

"But you don't have to," Nick said, and he decided to ignore how 1) his voice broke and 2) Jeff winced. "I'm not cheating on you or breaking up with you or anything, Jeff, I just want to marry you."

"I know you do," Jeff said softly, and Nick hated how he sounded like he was talking to a petulant child (Jeff would be a great dad, though, Nick always thought so. He just, apparently, wouldn't be a father _with_ Nick). "But... I realized that I'd be okay, if I lost you. It would hurt, but I'd be okay."

_I wouldn't,_ Nick tried to say, but he couldn't find his voice.

"And that's... I don't think I can marry you if I think I could live without you. That... That wouldn't be fair to you," Jeff continued, pausing to brush tears out of his eye. If this entire thing wasn't breaking Nick's heart (this was still unfair, Jeff, so unfair!), he would lean in and kiss the tears away, like he had so many times before.

"So... I'm sorry, ducky," Jeff said softly. He reached forward, taking the top of the ring box and closing it. "I can't marry you."

Nick looked between Jeff's face—his sweet, kind, apologetic, heartbreaking face—and the now-closed ring box. "Take it anyways," he said, holding the black velvet box out to him. "I... I really don't have any use for it. It's... It's yours."

Jeff just stared at the box for a long moment, his mouth slightly open like he wanted to protest it. Eventually, he just sighed and took it with a small nod. "Thank you," he said quietly, and Nick supposed that was about the best thing one could say in that situation. He liked to think that he was thanking him for more than just the ring, but maybe that was just his imagination.

Nick sat back then, feeling like all of the energy had been knocked out of him now that he had officially been rejected and Jeff had the ring.

Jeff slowly stood up from his seat, slowly pushing his chair in and watching Nick closely. "Really... I am so, so sorry," he said. "But... You'll find him. You will."

Nick just watched him go, unsure of what else he could do. He wanted to call out to Jeff, to make him come back and to kiss him senseless and slap him and say _I don't want some other guy, I want you, you asshole_. But he couldn't. He knew it wouldn't make a difference, and he'd already made a fool of himself in front of all the other patrons in the restaurant.

He called over the waiter and paid the bill before walking out of the restaurant, his head tilted downwards so that he wouldn't see anyone's pitying looks.

* * *

_In case anyone was wondering, the answer is yes, this is going to have a sequel._


End file.
